Munster title is key for Allen

JOHN ALLEN has only one immediate target for his team, to regain the Munster hurling title, though the popular Cork manager hopes the provincial championship is not devalued by the new championship system.

"The Munster final for me still has a great aura about it, but I'm not sure how long that will continue to be the case when winners and losers go to the quarter-finals."

Waterford manager Justin McCarthy feels that people from outside the province might be "a bit envious of Munster hurling, the way it's played and Sunday was another advertisement for hurling.

"If you win the Munster championship everybody wants to talk about it, if you don't win it, everybody tries to play it down within Munster. Realistically, last year Cork played it down because they were beaten in it and we played it up because we won a great game and it was a great boost for Waterford. It depends on what hat you're wearing.''

McCarthy is adamant the Munster final needs to retain its powerful appeal because of its 'special significance' for the hurling world: "Lots of things have changed within the GAA, but we want to keep that real interest of people going to Munster championship games. We don't want it to fall off."

Reflecting on Cork's victory, John Allen pointed out yesterday that after an up-and-down league campaign he never had any real doubts about his team recovering its form. "It wasn't that we took the league for granted, but went through it with a purpose to see players we wanted to see in different positions and at the end of it we took a step up. We played Wexford in Thurles last Sunday week and we played very well, which was reassuring.''

Allen readily admitted that he had been under a certain amount of pressure, saying he always felt he was on 'a hiding to nothing' taking over from Donal O'Grady. "I was personally delighted that we won, but I would have to give credit to the management team -from selectors to Declan O'Sullivan as physio, Gerry (Wallace) and Seanie (McGrath) as trainers. They have been superb."

Allen agreed that being able to call on virtually the entire All-Ireland winning team was an obvious advantage: "when you get a run like we got over the past two years and when you see players playing at that level fairly consistently, it makes your job that bit easier. But all management teams need to be aware that there will be days when certain players will not play well and you need somebody else to slot in. You're always aware of the need to strengthen your panel.''

To reinforce the point, Allen was delighted Brian Corcoran had agreed to continue: "When I spoke with Brian towards the end of the year, he intimated that he was going to play again, but he had a few things he had to sort out before could make a 100% commitment. I think we saw yesterday how valuable he is to the team.''

Allen also agreed that making up for last year's defeat in the Munster final had been a huge incentive for Cork, while he conceded the wind had been a factor in the game. "The wind was certainly worth something to us. Going in at half time a goal down we felt that we were well capable of winning the game, but we needed to stay with our game plan. Then, after conceding two more points, it was great to see Brian stepping up and getting a goal. But with Paul Flynn, who is so lethal from close-range frees, playing, you couldn't say until the final whistle went that we were out of the woods.''

He feels Tipperary will benefit from their two games with Limerick when they face Clare on Sunday week.

Meanwhile, Justin McCarthy says he will be glad of the extra games in the qualifier system to built up his team. "It gives us a very good opportunity. For starters, Waterford like playing games and the games we had at the latter end of the league and the few challenges were not outstanding. At least we are after one big championship match of high intensity and pressure and we gave a very good display. We want to get to the quarter-final. For that reason our next game is going to be very important to us, because we have to win a championship match yet.

"There's no doubt that we can improve. You could have met a lesser team and if you got beaten you would not know where you stood. At least we do know now how players stood up or didn't stand up. Certainly there were question marks over the full-back line. Cork got two goals from balls that should have been cleared.

"The good thing from our point of view is that we have a chance to look at that that we have a bit of time to recover and do something about it."